


I thought that I heard you laughing, I thought that I heard you sing....

by ThatwasJustaDream



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Community: 1_million_words, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-17 16:06:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1393849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Metatron's dead, and Dean has Cas' grace in its vial around his neck. He could save him, maybe, and life would be good - if he hadn't broken Cas' heart one too many times right before he found it. Now the clock's ticking and, by the way, Abaddon has Sam and Crowley's after Castiel's ass, too. Oh.... life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Lengths that I Will Go To...

“I forgive you,” Benny says it clipped and flat. 

Dean wonders if it’s the heavy, humid day that's draining the music from Benny's voice - or if maybe he's still just adjusting to being alive again. Later, he'll remember the Fleetwood Mac song playing on the radio when Benny said it… _Thunder only happens when it’s raining_ …. how his own hands were hard on the steering wheel while Benny’s hands were loose on his own thighs, kind of Buddha-like, eyes half closed. 

“You _what_?” Dean asked back, watching him sniff at the hay and the dirt and dung on the air streaming through the window as if it were a delicious, tropical breeze.

Then came that raspy, barely-voiced Lafitte chuckle; Benny suggesting it’s pretty goddamn funny Dean still thinks he’s done him some big damn favor.

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, baby boy. I get it; your brother’s …gone. He is _disparu by demon_ , and that does suck. Then your angel flies the coop - he’s _avoiding you_. Again. You need some experienced backup. So yeah. I forgive you for sticking me with the vagaries of life as a vamp on Earth to suit your own goddamned needs.”

“Me being stranded is part of why you’re here,” Dean cut in. “I’ll admit it. But I was never good with what I had to do to you. You knew I was coming for your twice-buried bones eventually. Just happens that eventually meant now.”

“Guess I _was_ anticipating it,” Benny’s eyes crinkled. “Fighting off blood lust again? Not fun. But…’least there are fewer monsters around every damn corner.”

Dean had caught him up on everything: Metatron deceiving Castiel, stealing his grace, the angels falling. How Sam barely survived Gadreel and then fell captive to Abaddon. He described the day he and Cas finally found her, Sam in her clutches – how Sam had shouted for them to run – ordered them to go kill Metatron and Gadreel while they could. 

They did. It was torture, though: The last he’d seen Sam, five of Abaddon’s long fingers were in his hair, red nails on her other hand digging into his shoulder, his neck, drawing thin lines of blood from Sam’s skin right before she’d disappeared, taking him…. where? 

What was she doing to him? Right now? And now, and now and…

“You and your brother went to insane lengths for each other,” Benny said. “May I suggest having won a huge battle you might wanna back off the war? Breathe a minute?”

“Screw that,” Dean muttered and he saw Benny shrug. “No. Just freaking no. We find Cas and restore his full powers -- then the three of us find Sam and kill the bitch. That is the plan and it’s not changing. You got my back?”

“Wouldn’t be here if I didn't,” Benny drawled. “You’re a pro with the chanting and the rituals but… I could'a resisted your pull, stayed where I was if I wanted. It’s good to see you.”

They fell silent, and didn’t discuss the other fly in their ointment: How they were searching for Castiel with only vague hints where to go – knowing Crowley was hunting him, too, with far more backing than they had. The former king of Hell had made no bones about how much he would cause Cas to suffer if he got him first; how he’d use him as a tool to force Dean to keep after Abaddon and destroy her.

Dean only got a bead on where Cas _might_ be hours before he dug up Benny: Reports of shooting stars in reverse, zooming up into the heavens in singles and in groups eight hundred miles away from them. 

Dean could practically hear the clock ticking. He fingered the vial that lay on the chain around his neck, glowing a warm silver-blue against his t-shirt. 

~*~

“You good?” He stood with his hand on a motel door a few hours later, watching Benny settle in on one of the beds with the TV remote in one hand and a pint by his hip. 

“Yeah, buddy. Go take your walk. Tell Angel Eyes I said hello - if he answers.”

Benny had cut him more than one break that day, including not asking why Castiel had abandoned Dean so fast after Metatron fell. 

It was almost like he had some ideas about the answer – and knew better than to pry.

~*~

“I know you can hear me….” 

Dean settled onto the bench of one of the sun bleached picnic tables behind the motel. The rotted wood creaked under him as he closed his eyes and leaned forward, sinking into prayer. 

“You gotta know I’ve found it. No way you haven’t felt that, right? Or are you blocking me out that hard? Are you _trying_ to burn out and die, Cas? If you are that’s…. so damn not fair. You never gave me a chance to…”

Tears stung, and he stopped to squeeze them back, to catch his breath and reach out for Cas once more with his mind. 

All he heard were crickets. All he felt was the wet, warm breeze, and rain threatening.

“I know you think you can read me like a damn book, but you have to let me say my piece. Come take your grace back and … let me explain. I won’t disappoint you again.”

A stronger breeze tore through the oak trees over him, making the leaves hiss as drops started falling. 

Before he gave up and went to bed he swore he’d heard something else; a faint, deep, tired laugh full of ‘No… no. No more.’


	2. The distance in your eyes...

“How are things by you?”

“A tad lonely,” Dean heard Charlie’s voice, thin and tinny through the cell line between them. “Like I’m the only living girl in Kansas.”

There hadn’t been time to find out exactly how she’d gotten word of the battle with Metatron and that Sam had been taken. Dean was just glad she’d come back to help.

“It’s okay; I had a few years’ adventure packed into a few months, so…I’m good," he heard her say. "Perfectly happy cozied up here with my laptop. Besides, being in this place? Kind of like being inside a video game, so….yay for that!”

“Got anything new for us?” Dean shifted in his seat in the busy diner, downing the last of his morning coffee while Benny paid the cashier for their breakfast.

“Yes. I found a few murder cases that happened between here and you, where the stench of sulfur was so strong the investigating officers passed out. Demons in a freaking pack, maybe?”

“You think?”

“Plus, a couple more murders in New Mexico – very close to the ongoing reports of all of those ‘backward fireworks.’ I sent you the locations. Connect the dots and…. it’s a crazy jagged line; you looking for your angel, him evading you, demons chasing you both.”

“Nowhere specific you can tell us to go, yet? To draw _her_ out?”

“If I knew how to catch your big-bad, don’t you think I’d have said so right away?”

She sounded wounded; she’d probably spent fifteen hours hacking phone lines and computer systems from Lawrence to DC and back to get _this_ much information for him.

“Sorry. And thanks, Charlie – you’re doing great. I appreciate it.”

“How’s your genie in a bottle holding up?” 

Dean heard way too much interest in her voice. He frowned, hand going to the vial.

“Not a bottle, it’s a…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. That was a figure of speech. I’ve got a picture in my head of it; silvery cap, thick, grey-green glass, your lover’s soul shining through like a mélange of sweet, sweet fairy dust dissolved in jizz.”

“Hey. Potty mouth. He’s not my…”

“You’re still going with the ‘not my boyfriend’ stance? _Really?_ Fine. Just… satisfy my curiosity; tell me you do have the tin man’s heart beating around your neck?”

“Yeah. But it’s fading. It was still strong when I pulled it off that rat bastard Gadreel’s neck last week; so bright you couldn’t keep your eyes on it too long, you know? Now… hell. Metatron said it’ll go out forever if it doesn’t occupy a host soon.”

“Maybe he was yanking your chain? He was dying at the moment he said it, and you’re the one who dealt the fatal blow. Wouldn’t you want to screw with your brain on the way out the door if you were him?” 

They both went silent, knowing it wasn’t much to hang hope on. Not with the vial holding Castiel’s grace growing dimmer by the day.

“Guess you have to find a host, then, Dean. A willing one. Who’ll take care of it like it’s the precious cargo you know it is. A host who’ll hurt like a piece of him has died if it….”

“Yeah. Got it. Not subtle, Charlie.”

As if he hadn’t been considering that option nearly every waking hour since he found it.

“You ready?” Benny kicked at the foot of the booth on his way from the cashier to the front door and Dean nodded and got up.

“Thanks for the info on the ascension sightings,” Dean told her. “We’ll head that way. And keep looking, please. We gotta find Abaddon, too. For Sammy.”

“It’s _all_ I am thinking about…” Charlie said it slowly, for emphasis. “As soon as I come up with anything, you’ll so know about it.”

~*~

“Can I ask a couple of questions without you goin’ ape shit?” Benny didn’t look at him, just settled into the driver’s seat and cranked the key.

“I don’t think I could freak out even if I wanted. Slept like crap last night.”

Benny had simply rolled with everything at first because, well, being alive again kind of put one in a headspace that said ‘go with the flow.’ But it had been days, and Dean knew this would be coming sooner or later.

“Well… I get what you told me; how taking in some other angel’s power turned out to not be a good call on Castiel’s part. But if that borrowed mojo is burning out on him… can’t he _let_ it? Maybe you ought to allow him to get on with the business of being human, again, and focus on your brother - who didn’t actually _choose_ to be where he is?”

“It’s not that simple. Turns out the grace Cas grabbed is burning him alive on the inside as it fades. He probably knows that’s true - feels it already. And it’ll only get worse. If he doesn’t get his own grace back….”

“Understood,” Benny cut him off, regretting the images he’d unintentionally put in Dean’s head. “But then why’d he scoot like that? Didn’t he have faith you’d find it?”

It took more than ten seconds for Dean to answer; so long that Benny snuck a sideways glance at him and watched his jaw working, eyes hard out the passenger side window.

“He doesn’t have faith in me at all any more. Not about anything. I give him the time of day? He’s double checking that shit before he takes my word on it.”

Benny merged them on to the highway flicked on the radio. 

“I guess that answers my question. Sorry I asked. Catch up on your rest, I’ll get us to New Mexico by sunset. Good?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

~*~

It didn’t take Dean long to sink into the passenger’s seat or into sleep. He dreamed about the night they’d killed a murderous angel, and then cleaned the blood of its host off Nora’s dining room walls, just the two of them…

“Hungry much?” Dean had watched Castiel wolf down his meal. 

Cas hadn’t hesitated when asked ‘where to.’ He wanted dinner first and then a real bed if only for a night.

“I’m sorry if my table manners are lacking,” Cas had ripped apart half a chicken, downing both it and the biscuits and gravy surrounding it in minutes. “Subsisting on Ho-Hos, hot dogs and coffee… it’s… trying.”

Cas said it like it was unavoidable fact. No hint of ‘you kicked me out, you bastard’ and yeah, that sucked. A lot.

Dean didn’t even see that Cas had been injured - until they got a room. Until he walked out of the shower with a towel around his waist, favoring his left arm; a huge purple blotch covered the triceps, red streaks running from over his elbow down his forearm.

“Holy… crap.”

“I don’t think it’s broken,” Cas sat on the edge of ‘his’ bed, letting the arm hang – an apparent attempt at pain relief. “Or it would hurt far more than it does. Correct?”

“Yes. You’d probably be screaming. Shouting at least…” Dean went to him and touched a few spots gently. “Looks like a bad contusion, maybe a strained ligament in your elbow. Been there- no fun. Hang on, I’ve got supplies for this kind of thing in the car.”

Dean fed him acetaminophen, then knelt in front of him at the foot of the bed to tape splints to his forearm.

He felt eyes on him, and figured Cas was watching, memorizing so he could do it for himself tomorrow. Then he looked up, and saw it wasn’t his arm or the splint or the tape Cas was gazing at; it was Dean’s face, and the concentration written on it as he worked.

“Stop it. Okay? I don’t…”

“You don’t what? Don’t want me? Or don’t feel you deserve…”

“You know the answer to that.”

“I would fix it if I could,” Cas said it so low it was almost a whisper. “Your self-hate. I would in an instant. But I can’t. You have to, Dean. You have to fix it. Please try?”

Cas leaned in to kiss him, then, and in his shock at both the words and the gesture Dean forgot to push away. He kissed back instead, eyes falling shut, heart doing weird, jumpy things at being touched by him like this, as if he were found treasure.

It was hypnotizing, how Cas adored on him; grazed at his mouth, his tongue with soft sucks and kisses and bites. Dean could feel Cas was waiting for him to pull away - then he got braver, kissing him deeper, harder when he didn’t. 

“At least stay….” Castiel asked when he did break away. “Tonight. In case we never get another chance?”

Dean couldn’t help the sighed out laugh that escaped him as he let himself be lured onto the bed and out of his clothes. He’d used that same line a time or five. He’d never had it used on him – let alone from someone who actually meant it. Who wanted him that much, even though he knew what he was getting.

~*~

“You okay?” Benny tried to sound casual but missed by a fair amount.

Dean had jolted awake. He tried not to think about what he may have said out loud in his sleep.

“Yeah.” 

It wasn’t the best part of the dream that made him jump; Cas with his head thrown back, his uninjured hand tugging at the sheets, body seizing. It was the worst part; dropping Cas off the next morning and watching his eyes go dark and distant. 

Looking resigned. Looking as let down as he had a right to feel.

“Find us a place to stop for the night. Now, okay?" Dean sat up, shaking off the memories. "Need your help, Benny. Gotta pop the top on this thing and take it in.”

“You sure?” Benny asked, but his eyes started darting over the highway signs. “We’re in the same state your girl claims he’s working out of – we could find him in the morning.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Dean pressed a foot into the floorboards like that could get them where they were going faster. “It won’t last‘til morning. I know it won’t. Time’s up, man."

The glow from the vial had been enough to light up the front seat of the Impala last night. Benny remembered thinking he could have read a book from it. Now it was twilight, and it barely lit up the space around Dean. 

Still, he wondered if Dean could take it, becoming part angel?

Turning into something that- Castiel aside - he actively hated. Yet again.


	3. What if all these fantasies come flailing around….

“When will you come back to us, Castiel?”

Her name was Naomi, oddly enough. She was ancient, but in her host body looked no more than about seventeen. He considered lying to reassure her, but lying had not worked terribly well for him the few times he’d attempted it. 

“I don’t believe that will happen. I’m sorry.”

“But we need you. It will be so difficult...”

“Only until you set things right. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that none of us is indispensible - you and the others can restore Heaven. Stay strong, focused and it will happen.”

“Yes,” she held his arms tightly as she nodded, though, eyes falling closed as he put his hands on either side of her head and began the incantation. “We will. And there will be peace in our home.”

The words of the prayer that would send her there flowed from him like a plainsong chant; calming, a happy-sad sound that other angels around him added their voices to until the air was echoing with it. 

He watched in awe as Naomi’s grace shot out of her eyes and mouth and soared upward. As much as he knew it was coming, it was still a heart-stoppingly beautiful thing to watch. Eight other angels left at nearly the same moment, and they could all feel it; the air temperature rising around them with the heat of all the ecstatic grace on the move. 

Going home.

The energy it took to send an angel back to heaven in this way? Most of the host bodies disintegrated in the process; Naomi’s turned to a dust so light the wind took it away before it could even mark Castiel’s hands or his coat.

A thousand angels had gone home since Metatron’s fall and the re-opening of the gates. Many of them left from here -- the open mesa that had proven a perfect launching ground. Others departed from various other spots around the world where their brethren gathered to assist them. Thousands more were still stranded, though, slowly finding their way to help via Angel Radio hour by hour by…

Castiel knew he wouldn’t survive to watch the final ones off. He wished he could have some way to see it; how everything would unfold.

“Who is that?” Verchiel asked as a thick, heavy warbling noise assaulted their ears.

“I don’t know.” Castiel answered, though that wasn’t entirely accurate. A tingling rose along his scalp, his spine at how familiar it sounded.

The high wine suggested an angel of considerable power but it was… _off_ somehow. Unstable. So… an angel of considerable power and what? Chaos? Confusion? 

Inexperience. 

The whine grew even louder and higher just as he appeared – wings fully extended, quivering with exertion, like he hadn’t expected it all to be this _difficult_. His eyes burned blue but with a familiar green-brown hue specific to its host. 

He looked fearsome and determined and …petrified. 

Castiel’s heart fell into his stomach when he recognized his own wings.

“Dean….” 

Normally it felt to good to say his name – it felt pure and healing. But now?

“Cas, don’t push me away!” 

He was, though; pushing hard with his mind, his stolen grace, repelling Dean with energy he could ill afford to spend.

“Dean, what have you done?”

“I found it. Look, I…..”

Silence. He was gone again.

A group of the other angels were around Castiel now, and more were headed his way. They were staring at him with…what? Horror? Pity? Disgust? It was one thing for an angel to ask a human to be its vessel. For a human to assume…to presume? They could only see it a defiling of his most basic essence.

Castiel had fallen to his knees; slumped - breath knocked out of him.

“That… human has your grace. Why did you push … _it_ away?” Verchiel asked.

“Because we are a target; demons will come for us sooner than later….”

_And if he’s here when they do? Dean can’t be here when they do…._

“Also, he has other battles he should be fighting…”

Verchiel nodded and urged the others to give him room, but Cas knew it sounded weak. He wondered if they sensed the words unsaid.

_Oh, and he is conflicted. About me. Irreparably. He will never…..ever…._

Oblivion. Get as many of his family back home as he could, until the stolen grace burning through his vessel consumed it and then…there would be nothingness. 

No more mistakes to be made. No more yearning and want and rejection and….

It would be bliss, nothingness.

~*~

“Holy freaking crap….” 

Dean heard the words coming out of his own mouth but they sounded incredibly distant and hollow, echoing, his ears ringing. He could faintly sense Benny crouched over him – holding a bottle of water to his mouth, an arm under Dean helping him up but he was an over-exposed blur until his eyes adjusted and….

“No, no…” Dean pushed the water away. He felt like he might puke if he tried to drink it now. “Thanks, it’s…. I’m okay.”

“I’ve seen some weird shit since I met you, Dean but tonight trumps it all.”

“I don’t have wings on me do I?’

The question was gritted out and he could hear Benny suppressing a laugh at the disgust in it. Benny could stand Castiel well enough but the rest of his overly pious, judgmental brothers and sisters? Dean knew he’d gladly watch ‘em all fry and maybe kind of enjoy it. Hell, Dean understood. He’d probably help light the grill.

“Not anymore. You sure were showing them off before you disappeared – and again when you crash landed a second later, but...they’re gone now. Did you get anywhere in between?”

Dean had insisted Benny hold the angel blade while he took in Cas’ grace – just in case. In case Dean couldn’t stand it. He hadn’t forgotten the whole ‘riding a comet’ imagery and….yeah. It was pretty much dead on. 

He’d never had a doubt about the other half of the question – what would actually happen when he twisted off the cap and let loose the contents; the blue-white energy had flowed straight to him, like a river to the ocean. He felt it pushing his head back, rolling into him, filling his eyes, throat, lungs, heart, muscles, veins… It was sweet and sad and like being with him, like understanding everything he’d endured for him and for Sam and Bobby and….

It took less than a heartbeat to find Castiel once he’d absorbed his grace – and only seconds more to be pushed firmly away by him.

“Yeah. I did go somewhere. I know right about where he is…. where they are. It’s a day’s drive from here, but if I….”

He started to try to focus, to push with his brain and the angel-juice he barely knew how to ‘run’ yet, but Benny wasn’t having it, was tugging him to his feet and heading him roughly toward the motel bathroom.

“You are both operating on fumes; on drained batteries, right? You and him?” Benny tugged a towel off the rack. “You've tried once. You’ll try again tomorrow. Get some water on you, and some rest. Then we decide if you attempt your super powers or if we drive his damn way.”

“Yeah.”

It was the right call; Dean realized somewhere between the hot water of the shower and the cocoon of blankets he rolled himself in afterward, shaking with cold, that he had nothing left. The grace ran so much more frigid than he’d understood it would, had him shivering, shaking until he got it – that in order to cut the pain, he had to let it in even more. He wrapped his mind around it, comforted it, held the pain to him as if it as if it were Castiel himself…..

Then he remembered it _was_ Castiel and that... even though he wasn’t physically here? They were one. 

If Benny heard him fall apart, he was good enough to never bring it up- ever.


	4. I've said too much... I haven't said enough....

“It’s one thing for him to be ‘him,’ running on junk food, auto exhaust and whiskey like he does. But what I’m seeing the last day and a half? That ain’t Dean….”

Benny watched disgust wash over the older hunter’s face as he spit out the words. Virgil was his name; some guy who vaguely knew John Winchester and had worked with Bobby and the boys here and there over the years. 

Who the hell was Virgil to judge? But he _was_ judging Dean. For being distracted, for making them chase around Arizona in search of a damned angel none of them felt was key to killing Abaddon anyway. 

Dean had been extra out of sorts and scattered when the cavalry showed up this morning. They’d pulled in right after his second and third attempts to teleport to Castiel. He’d been roundly denied; pushed away again and again by Cas, by a barrier of pure thought and willpower that said only ‘No! Go.’ 

Watching him try so hard, watching Dean wink out of the motel room and then come crashing right back in, flat on the floor and more broken each time? 

The worst.

“Damn… remind me not to have a bad day around you bunch, ever,” Benny drawled it, saw Virgil and his buddies get their backs up. “Like Dean hasn’t saved your asses a few times?”

It was a wild guess, but from the embarrassed looks Benny knew he’d guessed right.

“Point taken,” Virgil’s brother Daryl said, his voice asking for peace among the gathered. “Let’s agree on this: The time and effort we are investing helping Dean out… may it bolt the doors to hell shut tight for a long, long time. Amen?”

“Yes and amen,” Benny added his voice to the others’ and then watched them head for their cars and trucks, headed for the sites where angel ascensions were noted overnight.

He saw Dean coming back their way across the gas station parking lot before the confab broke up, but he waited until all the doors shut to say anything.

“Tough crowd.”

“Yeah,” Dean huffed it. “No kidding. Always are. With good reason, I guess. I’ve got… one day left, Benny. One. That’s all. Or I’m screwed. We’re all screwed, because of what I decided to….take on.”

He didn’t have to elaborate: One day to find Castiel, to keep him out of Crowley’s clutches, to return Cas’ grace to him somehow. One day to find Abaddon and save Sam from a round of deep, unrelenting torture; agony he not only didn’t need but maybe couldn’t even survive after Lucifer and the trials and Gadreel and….

One day for Dean to survive, too, to keep on breathing in and out and making clear-headed decisions despite the grace frying his body.

“Don’t put too much pressure on yourself….” Benny tried to console him, but it sounded weak to both of their ears. “C’mon. Let’s find your boy and get this done.”

~*~

“Talk to me,” Dean said into his phone.

They’d already put fifty miles in on the highway when it rang. Benny watched his face, guessed from the bits of the voice leaking through that it must be Charlie.

“You what? _Woah_ … I can tell you’re excited but…c’mon, start over and slow down.”

The fact Dean was in the passenger’s seat, was letting him drive again? It told Benny more than his scant words about how he was feeling. The white cast of his skin and the purple half moons under his eye were flags, too. There were other troublesome signs; blotchy grey rashes on Dean’s neck, creeping under his shirt collar where the skin looked thin and stretched – as if he might start giving out like a wet paper bag.

“Charlie, the second you hear, call us. If you don’t get me try Benny’s phone.”

“She found something?”

“Yes,” Dean looked like he couldn’t believe anything was going their way. “A spell, in a book in the library. She recognized elements of a chant we know Crowley used to call Abaddon. She’s waiting on one more piece of translation but... she might be able to amplify it; open a doorway straight to the bitch – kill her or capture her, bring her to the dungeon in the bunker.”

“She’s going to do that by herself?”

“’Course not. That’d be suicide. We might have to go back, go help her and then…”

“No way,” Benny cut in, shook his head when Dean started to object. “You’re the one said the clock’s ticking and… not to scare you, but I think you’re right.”

“Got a better idea?”

“Yes. You use those angel powers to toss my ass all the way to Lawrence, Kansas. I go _with_ , watch your girl’s back. We slay the dragon, save Sam. You find Cas.”

Benny could see him struggling with the idea of not being the one to save Sam.

“You can’t save everyone, Dean. You know it. You’ve gotta know it by now.”

“Yes….”

“Besides, once you get to him and he sees you, physically sees what you’re going through…Castiel won’t push you away again.”

“I have to hope not,” Dean said to himself as much as to him. “Only hope I’ve got.”

Benny let a few seconds go by with nothing but highway sounds. Then he took a breath.

“Look, I rattle off my problems to you all the time. It’s my way – in my family, we vented. But you…. I know it’s hard, Dean, but uh….. is there something….about Castiel and…well, about Cas and you that maybe you want to….”

“I broke his heart.”

There it was. 

“After Cas first lost his wings, he and I… I went to him in Idaho one week and we, um, ended up sealing the deal if you take my drift.”

“I do indeed.”

“Then we didn’t see each other for some time. Then we hooked back up to hunt Metratron and… we sealed the deal a bunch more times. I mean a fuckton more, like three times a day, like monkeys in heat and…”

“Oh…..”

“Aren’t you glad you asked? Anyway, that’s when Cas told me he loved me and I didn’t say it back. Couldn’t say it back. Because I am a fucked up mess.”

“Ouch.”

“And then he started getting sick from the grace he’d stolen. When we killed Metatron and didn’t find the vial with his right away? Cas lost his shit. He was popping the glass out of windows and doors and….I thought the walls of the warehouse we’d ganked the S.O.B. in were going to topple and kill us all. It was awful and it was all my fault.”

“Your fault?”

“S’how I felt at the time. One of his ass-butt brethren, she said that the moment he put his hand on me in Hell he was lost and maybe she was right. Anyway, it took all I had to calm him, to make him stop going _Bohemian Rhapsody_ on the place. That’s when I had a random thought. If he went to his rest nothing could hurt him anymore. Even _I_ couldn’t hurt him anymore. I wished…I actually wished for a second that he would die.”

“And he saw it?”

“Saw it, felt it, read my soul like a book the way he freaking always does and…. he thinks I don’t care about him, Benny. He thinks I wish he’d die and go away.”

“Why didn’t you tell him otherwise?”

“I tried, but he didn’t even give me a second to get the words out. I hadn’t said a _thing_ , yet I’d said too much and he was …gone. The look on his face it was….a nightmare. It wasn’t an hour later Sammy and I found Gadreel and the vial and ganked him too. A half a day after that we found Abaddon and …Cas doesn’t know she’s got Sam.”

“Hell of a week you had. Guess I see why you came for my sad, buried bones.”

“I’m sure you do.”

Benny was working up some words of support to share when a thought hit.

“Didn’t you say Castiel actually saw you the first time you tried to go to him?”

“He did.”

“So he saw his own wings and… he knows but… he pushed you away?”

“Exactly.”

“Which means….”

“Either he’s so suicidal he doesn’t care if I die, too, or there’s no way he can take his grace back. Not without killing me. And he won’t kill me so… maybe we’re both dead anyway. And he doesn’t want to watch it happen, either.”

“Wow….”

There were no words of comfort or deflection to be worked up against that thought.

Luckily for Benny, the phone rang again.

“Charlie? Yeah? You are amazing. Have I told you that lately?”

Benny didn’t even wait for confirmation – he started looking for an exit, a rest stop – anywhere to pull over for his express ticket to Kansas.

~*~

 

“Virgil, that you?” Dean was standing outside the strip mall, still swallowing the last drops of some bottled water.

He and Benny had put down in a town so desolate the nearest shopping center was mostly boarded over. Dean looked for any place to get water after the added physical stress of sending him off, after calling Charlie to make sure he’d arrived but… the Laundromat was it and the restrooms in it were locked so…

He’d bought a bottle from the vending machine and walked to the door and outside to drink it, to take in fresh air, too, but…. he barely felt either of them. Barely felt anything. 

“Send me the latitude and longitude. By email or text, okay?” Virgil had just told him they’d found Castiel’s entourage, and he barely felt that either. “Lat and long, Virgil. You got GPS on your phone, right? Welcome to the damn 21st Century. Okay… thank you.”

He’d wandered from the door to the Impala, stood now with a single hand on it, feeling the warmth in it. It was almost dusk, but the metal taking in all the sunshine all day…. 

The text hit his phone and he knew before he looked he didn’t have it in him, to drive it.

He was alone and exhausted and would end up in a damn ditch.

“Eighty more miles. Diagonal from here,” he snorted, running a hand over her, dipping his head to touch his forehead to the roof. “Baby, I am sending you back to Sioux Falls, to Bobby’s yard. One of us will come for you – Sam or me. One of us will make it. If not… if we don’t come, then you’ll know.”

He was talking to his car. Yeah, he’d done it before but…. fuck, he was losing it.

His eyes were closed, but he still felt it when she left on a broken wing and a prayer from a faithless man – felt warm turn to cold and even more alone and… he pictured her in Bobby’s lot. Told himself she’d made it there.

~*~

“Nice job, guys,” Dean walked toward the pack of hunters in the growing dark. 

He could tell right away they’d picked the right spot; could see the brilliant streaks of angels headed upward, headed home against the indigo sky, could feel Castiel about a tenth of a mile away – far enough not to be alerted to them, close enough to get to. 

Or maybe Cas was just about out of gas too. 

“Thanks for the leg work. I’ll understand if you want to leave it to me from….”

The looks on their faces. He hadn’t expected that. But then again, he hadn’t exactly explained how he planned to get here, on an angel's pilfered grace.

“He’s possessed….” 

Daryl. The most logical of them. That was not a good sign.

“No, dammit, I’m not….” how to explain traveling eighty miles in ninety seconds? “I’m not possessed, I swear, I…don’t want to hurt you but I will if I have…..”

“You ain’t human, though? Are you? _Whatever_ the hell you are….”

“What I _am_ is not cause for killing me….”

“Isn’t it?” Virgil this time, the four others with him cocking guns, pulling knives, headed his way. “You know the drill, Dean; kill it first, as questions later.”

Son of a bitch. Yeah, that was the drill.

Like he needed this.


	5. Cry, Try, Why Try....

“Don’t make me kill you,” Dean couldn’t blame them snickering at him, their quick, tight laughter dark and heavy. They were, after all, the guys coming at him armed while he looked to be empty-handed. “Don’t want to, but I will if you make me…”

Not one of them stopped, until Dean raised a hand. Then they stopped hard, flying back five, ten feet each - weapons pulled from their grips, skittering into the desert scrub. 

Virgil’s knife stuck around, though. It did a wild pirouette, boomeranged back at him from behind and buried itself an inch deep in his left ass cheek.

“Holy … _shit_ , you stabbed me in the….”

“I did you a favor, you knee-jerk bastard. You’re still alive, aren't you?”

Dean could feel it; his own body humming, eyes hot, probably glowing. At least they knew what he was now. Not that they’d necessarily give blue eyes much more of a pass than black, but….

“Where’d you get the angel juice, Dean?” Virgil pulled the knife out of his own flesh with a grunt, sheathing it without looking to retain what dignity he had remaining. “Like I have to ask. There was a day you were a true hunter; you hated those pious freaks as much as any monster, demon, vamp or…”

“Yes, there was a day – a day when I shot first and asked later, too. And I might have killed my best friend; stabbed him in the chest before I even said hello to him. Scratch that - not my friend, my … Cas. I _am_ still a true hunter- but maybe a smarter one now. And if you or anyone else gives either him or me a moment’s grief? I swear….”

He tossed them another twenty yards away with a thought, watching them scramble for their vehicles. He set off all their car alarms, trucks ignitions, sent their radios blaring on high, too, as they left and.. well, so much for approaching the angels gathered down the hill quietly. 

If Castiel didn’t know he was here before….

Dean decided to wait for him; stood watching the show – golden pillars of pure energy soaring up in the black night sky, living creatures defying gravity. Headed for Heaven. 

Heaven - it had its ups and downs, as he remembered. Kinda dry. Predictable. But it hadn’t been horrible. Maybe ….

“Hello, Dean….”

He didn’t move, didn’t look toward the voice. Just smiled at the low, warm sound. 

“Hey, buddy.”

“What did you _do_?” Castiel was walking his way slowly, limping from exhaustion and from standing, chanting, assisting for hours on end.

His jacket and suit coat were gone, white shirt-sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His face and the V of his neck and chest were streaked with dirt and sweat, his pants full of red dust . He looked as pale, purple and three-quarters dead as Dean knew he looked, too.

“You _have_ to take it back…” Dean pulled his eyes from the sky to meet his gaze. He’d meant to say it more forcefully, but it came out a murmur. He had nothing left in the tank - and hearing Castiel in the same state? Shit, it hurt. “ _Tell_ me you can; that you can take your grace back from me….and save yourself. That you're not _trying_ to die?”

“Don’t you think I would have taken it off your shoulders if I could? I’d do anything to stay with you, to spare you, but….”

“No ‘buts,’ man. No _would have, could have_ – this is it, right? You’re screwed, I’m screwed if you don’t, so you have to ….”

“Dean….” They were together, and Cas was reaching for him, holding him, forehead finding his as if he couldn’t stand to watch Dean's eyes turn from needy and hopeful to disappointed. Doomed.

Then he was reaching in, kissing him soft and careful and Dean sank into it, let Cas run it….

He sank into the _‘goodbye’_. Because that’s what this was, the same message pressed over and over to his lips, his cheek, his chin; _Goodbye, we’re out of luck, always were, no surprise…..”_

“Cas, what the hell?" He could feel his heart in his throat, making his breath short, eyes stinging. "What don’t I know? Tell me. C'mon, tell me....” 

Dean had let his eyes fall shut the better to feel that mouth, so he never saw it- only felt a rush of air as Cas was pulled from him, flung groaning against a boulder on the path to the desert floor below. 

Dean tried prying him from the face of the rock with mojo, first, and then ran to him when that failed. But he never made it. He was on his own back, now, fists pummeling him, feet kicking him in the ribs, the head, trying to get steel-toed boots into his gut. 

From the sounds Cas was making, he was getting a ton of the same.

Dean fought ‘til it didn’t make sense, then went limp- looking, listening….

“Hello, prettiest knife in the drawer...” 

Crowley. Somewhere up there, over him, voice equal parts pissed and pleasantly amused to see him this way. 

“Did you believe, for any length of time at all, that I would forget my promise to torture your _security blanket with wings_ to screaming death if you didn’t deliver me the knight’s head on a platter? You’re supposed to be my personal Salome, doing your ‘aren’t I fuckable, pretty lady?’ dance for Abaddon - not fretting over some sad, sorry ex as you are. He is your ex, correct?”

“Crowley, stop. You don’t know what you’re doing….”

“That’s what one would say, isn’t it? ‘Oh, please, do give us a second, you don’t understand.’ It’s where all anti-heroes fail – a moment of kindness, or a few seconds to enjoy the kill, doesn’t matter; bites ‘em in the ass every predictable time. Me? Not going there. Get her dead -- and if Castiel isn’t, too, I’ll toss what’s left of him at your feet to patch up the best you can.”

The silence after that was so strong, Dean could hear his own ears ringing with anger, exhaustion – could hear the chanting of the angels a few hundred yards away, and the hissing ignition of more souls going airborne.

Part of him wanted to lie there and let it happen – let himself die along with the piece of Castiel still burning inside him but….the image of Sam suffering at her hands, Cas at Crowley’s….

He pulled himself up to elbows, hands and knees, to his feet. He sucked in a deep breath of warm, dry desert air and felt around in his head, his heart; felt for him, out there somewhere and….yes. There….Cas…right…there.

He let go of everything – time, space, his own horrible, flailing failure to correctly manage angel skills and … went to him.

This _was_ it. No kidding, no third chances. Whatever happened… it would be over soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, I'd say this story is somewhat parallel to canon, but it obviously leaves out the Mark of Cain plot line, which I know is huge. That's because the prompt I am writing to was posted before the Cain episode - and also because I wanted to keep it more about Cas and Dean and saving Cas' grace.


	6. That was just a dream....

“It’s okay, don’t try to move yet. _Slow_ , Dean… slow.”

Castiel’s voice; calm and even, stern but gentle. Cas sitting on the cold, damp floor, holding the upper third of him in his lap. His head resting in the crook of Cas’ left arm. 

Cas’ other hand was grazing along the length of his body, seeking out places where he was bloodied or bruised and healing them one by one.

“Stop it,” Dean heard the dust in his own voice as he flung the hand away. “Don’t you dare spend bandwidth you can’t afford on me.”

“I only want to ease the pain. We don’t know how long we have left and…it would be nice to spend the time together in comfort. Amazing thing, pain – a warning system, really. Like a fire alarm for the human body…. ”

“Are you _kidding_ me? We’re gonna lie here; me half angel, you half human, both of us half dead and have a philosophical chat about _pain_?”

“I told you before….” Cas shrugged, one side of his mouth quirking up. “I’ve enjoyed our talks. Haven’t you?”

Dean lifted his head and saw them scattered on the floor of wherever this dank basement/dungeon from hell was located; bodies formerly possessed by demons - the ones who had attacked him- now merely eight to ten burnt out husks.

“Where’s Crowley? Did I kill him? Tell me I killed that rat bastard, give me that much.”

“No, sorry,” Cas went back to tending him, unasked. “But you did, uh… what’s the term? Put a hurting on him. He took off, but he’ll be feeling it for a while.”

“Sam…” He started to try to get up again but Cas held him tighter.

“Relax. Look for him with my grace. Try it, please, and _you_ tell _me_ where Sam is.”

He said it like he knew already, and that was enough to go on, enough to let go with.

The second Dean did, waves of feelings rolled in: Their fear, the three of them, the adrenaline, their victory. Mountains of relief. He could see Sam resting, recovering, being tended to.

“He’s in the bunker. They got him… Charlie and Benny. Wow. They killed Abaddon, didn’t they? They got her. Cas, they got her…”

“Yes. They did.”

Dean opened his eyes, returning to this moment and …oh, no.

“You look like shit.”

Castiel did. Before, out on the mesa, he was clearly worn and drained. But now he’d aged a decade in minutes, looked gaunt with a waxy palor to his skin and Dean suddenly wondered what he looked like? From Cas’ face and the sorrow in his eyes….it had to be bad.

“Why can’t you take your grace back? Do you have to kill me to get it? ‘Cause buddy, I’m thinking at this point if that’s the deal you’d better go for it.”

“Kill you?” Cas’ eyes did the squinty thing, his lips pursing and the sight sent a comforting shiver through Dean during this worst of all possible times. “No, that’s not it at all. Don’t you remember? Jimmy took my grace from his daughter, and she’s well, she’s fine. She’s an honors student now, actually, and she plays soccer and…”

“Focus,” he reached up and cupped Cas’s jaw – smacked it, shaking his head with his hand after that. “ _Why_? Can’t you take it back? And save both our asses? Huh?”

“Dean, you weren’t there when Metatron slit my throat.” 

Castiel looked overwhelmed, remembering it, and it was clearly about more than the cut, or the shock of being robbed in such an intimate way.

“He needed something specific: The grace of an angel in love with a human That’s why he targeted me. Now I can only receive my grace back from a human in love with an angel and…. there aren’t any.”

Dean could understand it – the way Cas’ eyebrows were pulling down into a hard ‘V,’ him watching Dean laughing his ass off, rolling with mirth and finding it….inappropriate. But he couldn’t stop, was still breathless with the giggles when he pulled him down for a kiss and a hard bite to those still-pouting lips.

“Castiel, you idiot. You total child. You go and read my mind for one damn second when I’m having an unworthy thought about you and that is that? Years of us through thick and … _thicker_ , wiped out because for a freaking moment I wished you were at peace? Shit, haven’t you had the same thought about me?”

“Dean, it won’t work. You can’t lie about this, my grace simply won’t…..”

“Cas.. if everyone who had the same unworthy thought lost their families because of it? The world would be in chaos. You know why?”

“No…” Cas whispered it, face hovering hover his, reading Dean for sincerity, his heart in his eyes in a way it hadn’t been in so long. “Why?”

“Because love’s a damn burden, man. You know that by now. It’s a responsibility and I took this one on way the hell back. You need a declaration? Okay, yes, I love you, Cas – I’m _in_ love with you and…”

Dean would have kept going but there were lips on his and it wasn’t about kissing – it was a ‘please,’ an urgent, hungry, ‘now, give it to me… come on… for us both….’

He let go of the grace without conscious thought; did without doing, let it flow out of him the same way he’d closed his eyes and chased after Cas in the bowels of nowhere when Crowley stole him away.

The light between them was so brilliant, there was no keeping his eyes open. He pried his lids open for a half a second, as much as he could stand, and it was burned on the back of his eyes: The sight of Castiel taking in his grace, the color returning to his face, blue-black wings rising up over them both and casting shadows on the walls.

Dean felt his heart thump, fall and …stop, then beat hard again. It hit him there was no guarantee he was going to survive this. At least Cas would make it. Maybe he would watch over Sam from time to time and…

He could rest in peace if that’s where this was going. He was good.

Dean let go even more.

~*~

_The Road Four Years On…._

High piano notes filled the otherwise silent bedroom in the bunker.

“Your phone,” Castiel rasped it out. “Dean… it’s ringing….”

He could hear Cas was still half asleep, but not so out he couldn’t find Dean’s side with an elbow and…

“Ow. Cranky much?” He rolled, grabbing the phone. “Hey, Samwise… what’s up?”

They talked and Cas crawled out of bed, headed for the bathroom. Dean heard him taking a long piss, followed by the sound of the sink taps and his spin toothbrush. The boy loved that spin toothbrush; freshest kisses ever, if a little too minty some mornings.

“Go back to sleep,” Dean was off the phone by the time Cas climbed back under the down comforter, sliding south and getting up over him at the same time. “Don’t need you grumpy all day.”

“I’m not sleepy…” Indeed, Cas’ hands were wandering, hips right about over his, rocking, knees digging into the mattress. “Want to fuck you. Dreamed I was. May I?”

They were about 70/30 on that, Dean preferring top, but… hell, yeah. Absolutely. He reached with his right arm for the nightstand, with the left he cupped Cas’ neck and reeled him up from where Cas had started softly abusing his chest to kiss him.

“You’re a bad brother-in-law,” he lectured between sucks, lifting his head and looking around, reaching, lubing Cas’ fingers and then hitching down flat, legs spreading for him. “Don’t you even wanna know what Sammy had to…”

“I am still a celestial being,” Cas slid a finger in deep, grinning and biting his own lip at the huff it earned him, the jump and the soft groan from Dean when one became two gliding slickly in and out repeatedly with quick twists. “Glad that he got into grad school. Maybe we can talk it through over breakfast. You know…after I push a lot of pretty sounds out of you?”

It was his way of asking; Cas liked him noisy, and Dean was learning to give him that without blushing. Actually, Cas liked the blushing part, too, so…. it worked out fine.

“You’re turning into a hippie….” Dean traced his fingertips over Cas’ furry jaw as they lay catching their breath after, getting nothing back but him shaking his head 'no.’

Cas was fond of not shaving every day. He was also a huge fan of long, slow lunches and dinner out, their bed with fresh sheets, walks in the morning and afternoons in the library. It worked, for now, because somehow the détente between Crowley and the angels who’d made it home was holding. Life was almost… placid. 

“Maybe after breakfast I’ll get online and find us a case?” Cas was pulling the comforter over his own head as he suggested it, sliding south again, and Dean got both arms around him tight. “Something challenging enough to keep us in tune?”

“You really up for that?”

The long um-hmmmm he got back sounded mostly genuine.

As Cas slid back into sleep, Dean thought about all of their days that had been true nightmares. If this, if _now_ was good? Really good? He was in no mood to bicker with it. To poke it with a pin.

The balance would tip; there would be war again. Misery, maybe. But 'til then … it was a dream.


End file.
